John Heuzenroeder

The Australian tenor, a long-standing member of the Cologne Opera ensemble, studied at the Victorian College of Arts in Melbourne, among other places, and began his career with performances at the Victoria State Opera and Opera Australia. He has worked with the symphony orchestras in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Tasmania and participated in renowned Australian music festivals. He went to Sapporo in Japan and Glasgow in Scotland for further vocal studies, and eventually settled in Germany.
In addition to numerous roles in both the lyric and character repertoire, he devotes himself particularly to the English-language repertoire, such as Tom Rakewell (The Rake's Progress at Opera Australia and Theater Dortmund) or Quint (The Turn of the Screw). His repertoire on German stages includes roles such as Rodolfo (La Bohème), Count Almaviva (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Vašek (The Bartered Bride), Beppe (Pagliacci), Goro (Madama Butterfly), Freddy (My Fair Lady) and Alfred (Die Fledermaus).
At the 2021 Bregenz Festival, he sang the role of Mime in a concert performance of Richard Wagner's ‘Das Rheingold’ under the musical direction of Andrés Orozco-Estrada. Guest performances recently took him to the Wuppertal Theatre and the Wiesbaden State Theatre, among others. In Wuppertal, he most recently sang Raoul de St. Brioche in ‘The Merry Widow’ and Arnalta in ‘L'incoronazione di Poppea’ and Heinrich der Schreiber in ‘Tannhäuser’. At the Hanover State Opera, he sang the role of the witch in ‘Hansel and Gretel’, at the Augsburg State Theatre, he played Bob Boles in ‘Peter Grimes’ and in Mercadante's ‘Il giuramento’ at the Klangvokal Festival in Dortmund. In 2024, he sang Torquemada in Ravel's ‘L'heure espagnole’ together with the orchestra ‘Les siècles’ at the opening concert of the Festival Ravel in St. Jean de Luz.
At the Cologne Opera, he celebrated successes with a wide range of tenor roles, including Pedrillo in ‘The Abduction from the Seraglio’, Anfinomo in ‘Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria’, Quint in ‘The Turn of the Screw’, Narraboth in ‘Wozzeck’, Oronte in ‘Alcina’, Jaquino in Beethoven's Fidelio, Tinca/Gherardo in Giacomo Puccini's Il trittico, Pang in Turandot, Pirzel in Die Soldaten, Monostatos in Die Zauberflöte, the Man with the Donkey in Die Kluge and Bardolfo in Verdi's Falstaff, among many other roles. He appeared in the role of Polonius at the Cologne Opera in the German premiere of Brett Dean's ‘Hamlet’ under the musical direction of Duncan Ward.
In recent years, his roles have included Victorin in Erich Wolfgang Korngold's ‘Die tote Stadt’, Loge in ‘Das Rheingold für Jung und Alt’, the Man with the Donkey and the 1st Tramp in Carl Or ff's ‘The Clever Girl’, Asasello in ‘The Master and Margarita’ as well as the 1st Armoured Man and Monostatos in ‘The Magic Flute’, Pastor in ‘Miranda’ and Pang in ‘Turandot’. He sang Arnalta and Nutrice in ‘L'incoronazione di Poppea’ in Toulon and Cologne in 2024. Other roles in Cologne: Emmanuele Polizzi in the world premiere of Frank Pesci's ‘The Strangers’ in 2023, Cascada in ‘The Merry Widow’, Horace Adams in ‘Peter Grimes’, Old Faust in Gounod's od's ‘Faust’, Gran Sacerdote in ‘Idomeneo’, Remendado in ‘Carmen’, Normanno in ‘Lucia di Lammermoor’, A young servant in ‘Elektra’ and Abdallo in ‘Nabucco’. In a scenic production of Zimmermann's ‘Die Soldaten’ for the Cologne Philharmonie, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg and the Philharmonie de Paris, he sang the role of Pirzel again in 2024.